Saturday, March 07, 2009

THIS IS REALLY HAPPENING.....

Steve told someone at the campground this evening, "We leave three weeks from tomorrow."



We leave for GEORGIA three weeks from tomorrow.



We leave for Georgia three weeks from tomorrow.



Can it be?????



I've got all my food done; now I just have to line up 24 bags and drop one of everything in. Oh, and add the broccoli to my Turkey Tetrazzini, after Fiberjoy finishes it up for me :-) Honest, she read my blog post about being able to find lots of okra but not much broccoli, and she bought me 5 pounds and is dehydrating it. And we've never met!!



Another friend I've never met is sending me a down sleeping bag. Mailed it yesterday.



People are talking to me as if I'm going to walk to Maine.



Am I actually going to walk to Maine? Of the 2,000 or so hopefuls who start each year with that intent, only about one in ten make it. There's a 20% dropout rate in the first 30 miles (mostly people who start with a 60-pound backpack expecting a smooth, groomed path.)



There are things you do without, in order to keep your backpack to 1/4 of your weight (that is, 1/4 of your ideal, not necessarily current, weight.) Like changes of clothes. You have some but it's for changing weather conditions, not to have clean clothes. You don't get clean clothes until you wash your hiking clothes in a laundromat in town while wearing your rain jacket and pants.



I saw a guy on the trail last spring wearing a shirt that said, "Same shirt. Different day."



I'm wearing my Keystone Vermont City Marathon shirt. It'll remind me to hang in there. That was probably my worst-ever marathon in terms of sticking with it. But I got a nice shirt :-)

Going to bed now. Resting my darn tendons. If I have to hike with tape on my tendons, I will hike with tape on my tendons. I will not let my AT keep me off the AT.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Dried today. Though I'm dismayed how 5 lbs of broccoli dried down to almost nothing. (Two small zip-lock bags.) Wish I'd picked up 2-5lb bags. I'd planned to dehydrate last weekend but had a mental set-back when I dug through my stash of cherries I'd dried last summer. To my horror, and dismay they had been contaminated with moths. eeuww

Then the week got hectic busy with my head not functioning at all well. Ever have those days when the second you plan to do something it's forgotten? Yep - that kind of week.

Ann (bunnygirl) said...

This is so exciting! What kind of tape are you using on your tendons? I highly recommend kinesio tape, which I use whenever I've got a soft tissue injury. It sticks through sweat and water, and it has enough give that you can do a nice firm wrap without cutting off your circulation or limiting movement.